Cursed and Hopeless
by ConArtist879
Summary: There're witches. There's a case. Only the other witches die and then there's just one. And she's not a witch-she's a Goddess. This poses a problem for the boys because she curses Dean and Cas and Sam? They can't see a way out of this one. Here's to hope.


**Authors Note**: I feel accomplished; I finally finished writing something for my favorite fandom. XD. Would just like to say that I'm sorry for any mistakes you might find in here because I edited it myself and I don't always catch everything. Sorry in advance.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Supernatural. Eric Kripke does. I'm only borrowing the boys temporarily. *Huggles Dean, Sam and Castiel*  
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Dean hates witches. Every one of them is an evil little skank bent on ruining someone's life. Like, for example, Dean's. And _groups _of witches are even worse than just _one _witch. Because whatever a _group _of powerful witches casts is ten hundred times worse than what a _single _powerful witch casts. It's a cold, hard, undeniable fact.

As is the fact that Dean has a loud mouth that gets him into trouble. Trouble like, again for example, saying to a group of witches' faces that they are, in fact, evil skanks that wouldn't know a damn thing about loving someone (because this particular coven had been brewing love potions and casting spells -read: curses- on people's hearts.) Trouble like, say, continuing on in this manner to say that they are also a bunch of psycho bitches that are making deals with Demons that will take their crappy souls for the crazy ass powers they are getting in exchange.

Possibly it is said after the lead witch has already tried to kill Sammy by flinging an engraved blade at the youngest Winchester, which always has the instantaneous affect of pissing Dean off royally and causing the blonde Hunter to run off at the mouth.

This results in the four witches shrieking in indignant rage and dousing Dean in an oily water-based substance that causes the smell of violets and cinnamon to waft up in the air. All the women's voices, in unison, begin to chant softly together and Dean has already pulled his gun from the back of his jeans, as has Sam, before the first sentence is even finished. Both Hunters level their weapons at the witches standing scattered in the old, rustic attic of Claudia Winters, the leader who threw a knife at Sam, and when a red headed lady in a short skirt and a cardigan tries to sneak up on them with her meat cleaver Dean shoots her without hesitation, even as the chanting doesn't stop.

Dean feels a twisting in his chest as the voices continue, like someone is gripping his heart in their hands and pulling cruelly. It hurts, more than it hurt when he and Sam were chasing that Rawhead and he got electrocuted but not as badly as when the hounds tore him apart and dragged him to Hell.

He gasps harshly when breathing becomes almost impossible, sweat dotting his brow and slicking plump lips as Dean's knees give out reluctantly beneath him. Seeing this, his older brother kneeling while his face pales rapidly, Sam panics and falls beside Dean. "Dean!" Sam grasps at the blonde, winding an arm around Dean's trim waist and placing a hand flat against the muscular chest. He can feel the heart below his palm beating a stuttering, staccato rhythm. Sam hurriedly snatches up the Revolver from where it fell from his grip and fires off two shots.

Originally, he tries to aim for Claudia, since she is the one to perpetuate whatever is happening to Dean, but the other witches will do for now, given that Claudia- blonde haired, blue eyed, big breasted Claudia- has done some weird thing with her fakely tan hands to block the bullet and send it ricocheting into Abby and his other shot doesn't miss Daisy.

The lower the number of witches, Sammy notices, the more color floods back into Dean's cheeks, so Sam is all for ganking Claudia and moving on but then the blonde bitch ceases chanting, Dean looks fully recovered about a minute after that and is pushing Sam off of him in an effort to resurrect those wondrous things called 'personal boundaries' and Sam has the feeling that whatever just happened, Dean has totally gotten screwed all to Hell, in a manner of speaking. Which is how Sam ends up staying Dean's murderous impulses, because they really need to know what the fuck Claudia and her merry band of sluts just did.

So as Sam calmly places the gun in the waistband of his jeans (they obviously aren't working all that well on the witch) Dean struggles inelegantly to his feet and shoots an evil glare at Claudia. "What the hell did you just do to me you crazy bitch?"

"Dean," Sam hisses, giving the man a stern look. Sure, he wants to know too but insulting her is what got Dean into this mess in the first place! "Would you shut up for just five minutes so we can actually get some answers?" he asks and Dean looks like he's going to start swearing again any minute now just to piss Sam off. It doesn't happen though.

Claudia's throaty laugh stops their words being spoken and her head is thrown back, heavy hair caressing her ass, smirking and cat eyed when she finally stops to stare at them (read: Dean.) She seems to find something about all of this hilarious, which doesn't surprise Dean at all because 'witch' and 'bitch' are pretty much synonymous in his book, but he genuinely isn't sure whether she's laughing at him and Sammy or just finds whatever the fuck she's done to him amusing. It's hard to tell, but then she starts sauntering forward and Dean decides that he doesn't really care, bringing up his own gun since Sammy (the idjit) put his away.

"I would stop walking forward if I were you sweetheart, cause I won't hesitate to put a bullet through your brain." Dean threatens, which generally makes people think twice about coming closer (he says nothing about the various supernatural creatures that aren't human and aren't really worried unless he's packing silver bullets, rock salt shells, holy water, or a flame thrower) but Claudia acts like she didn't even hear him.

"I'm not worried about your toys, _Dean_," she draws out his name and gives him bedroom eyes and now Dean is confused as to whether Claudia wants to kill him, curse him, or drag him kicking and screaming into her bed. "Bullets won't hurt me, as Sammy boy looks to have figured out. They won't even graze me." Claudia places her freakishly long red fingernails against Dean's smooth, taught skin and both Winchester men tense up.

With good reason.

After a few seconds of resting her nails on Dean's cheek, the witch digs them into the skin, causing blood to well up from the deep cuts as she throws him across the attic into a wall. Dean's skull cracks harshly against the sturdy wooden panels and he groans, lifting a hand to touch the back of his head, fingers coming away sticky with blood. "Shit." he says with feeling and scrambles to his feet. Dean thinks he almost prefers it when Sammy is the one getting the crap beaten out of him. _Almost_. Or better yet, Cas, because at least the angel is self healing and all that shit.

Sam is frozen in place, unable to help Dean or move at all, when Claudia flicks her eyes towards the brunet and smirks slowly. She makes a shoving motion that sends Sam flying this time into a crowd of junk filled boxes. "Sammy!" Dean shouts, furious, and disregards everything Claudia has said about bullets not affecting her. Fuck that, he'll damn well try anyway.

And he does. Dena unloads every round he has in the bitch witch's body directly but (unfortunately, in Dean's opinion) she wasn't lying. Not a single damn bullet hits her, they just go ricocheting everywhere, one managing to clip his shoulder and fuck, that hurts. Red blooms like a flower, staining the dark shirt and over shirt he's wearing.

He hisses, "Are you kidding me?" as he releases the gun and yanks out a hunting knife with his good arm from the inside of his combat boot in the (vain) hopes that maybe this will do some damage. Claudia sighs like she's disappointed in Dean and leans over him where he's leaning limply against the wood, plucking the blade from his fingers and acting as if Dean wasn't gripping it as though his life depends on it. Which, Dean thinks, it kinda does.

"Tsk, tsk, Dean." Claudia sighs. "I would think that you might be a little nicer." The woman pouts, scolding. Her cotton pink halter clings tightly to her chest, jean skirt looking like little more than a belt, and white thigh high plastic boots complete the slutty picture Claudia paints. Absently, and probably because of the blood he's losing from the gunshot wound and gash in his head, Dean wonders if sending Claudia to a convent would help her stay away from goddamn witchcraft so he could have sex with her, because she really is beautiful.

Then he makes a face and decides that no, it wouldn't help, and even if it did he wouldn't sleep with her. _He _isn't crazy enough to sleep with some evil supernatural _**thing **_from the basement who claims to have reformed. That's Sammy's kink, not his.

..........

Dean thinks the loss of blood is starting to really affect his thoughts.

This is something that the blonde Hunter confirms when his wide green eyes see double of Sam and Claudia. Then, Claudia leans down in front of him and cups his chin in her hands. She seems to grow bigger, suddenly filling up the room. Her features sharpen, blonde flat-iron hair shortening, curling, turning dark black. The fake tan becomes noticeably less orange and Claudia's sapphire eyes are the only things that stay the same as she hits her normal height of over nine feet tall. (Thank God for high ceilings.) Even her clothes change from something taken out of a hooker's closet to what you would see the Greeks and Romans wearing in the movies; a pale cream dress made of crimped, swishy fabric.

"Dean Winchester. You have been cursed...by a Goddess." Claudia announces in a booming voice that seems to echo inside the small, wooden attic. As soon as Dean hears her say this he groans, flops his head back and then winces when the sharp, momentarily stunning pain reminds him of his beat up condition.

"Oh come on," the blonde Hunter bitches, which Sam would discourage if he were still conscious. "Groped by an angel, Curse by a Goddess...what the hell, man?" Claudia looks at him disapprovingly. "Seriously, what the hell?"

"_I_...am Aphrodite." the goddess continues, though a frown is tugging at her pouty mouth. "And I've been watching you for a very long time Dean Winchester..... A heartbreaker, a love them and then leave them, one evening stand man, that's how you have drowned out your sorrows and walled up your emotional pain for years, isn't it _Dean_? Make crude comments and pretend to Daddy and Sammy and the World that you've never even given a second glance to attractive men you copulate with. _**Well I know the truth**_." Aphrodite hisses sleekly, shrinking, swooping in close like a venomous snake.

"All your heart reveals is a frightened, lonely child- too scared of being rejected, of being abandoned, to try for love. And you look where you shouldn't," Aphrodite taunts, smirking. Her derisive laughter sounds clear and bell like in the hush. "You watch one who would never see you as more than what is permitted him. Pathetic little vessel for Michael, soon you probably won't even be able to look."

Dean scoffs, spitting out the blood that has trickled into his mouth. Too weak now to stand up any longer, he slides down the dusty attic wall onto the floor. He wipes his lips clean with a calloused hand (making sure to avoid using his injured shoulder) and runs his tongue over teeth to get rid of the rest of the metallic tasting blood, sending a venomously angry glance at Aphrodite, once Claudia. He thinks he likes Claudia better.

"You're out of your damn mind, _Aphrodite_. I don't know what you think you see in my fucking heart, but you must have gotten your wires crossed with someone else. I am not _pining_," Dean manages a sneer, "for any-damn-one so why don't you just go sip ambrosia or something and leave me and my brother alone." Aphrodite sighs when she sees Dean is clinging to whatever bravado he can keep hold of still and decides to waster no more time. (That and the angel are drawing nearer.)

She does not truly bear Dean any ill will but in wake of the Apocalypse, Aphrodite is painfully aware of what will happen if Dean has no one left standing by his side in the end. What she does now is only meant to try and prevent it all. Because she knows (as she has seen Dean's heart, although not his soul for that is strictly Castiel's honor) that the beautiful Hunter will do nothing himself if it is left to him. But Samuel will, and Castiel, she thinks, will as well.

The goddess can only hope it will work as she plans.

Aphrodite expands back into all nine feet and seven inches of herself, raises her voice to the commanding, heartless boom she has long since perfected and adds only a hint of malicious glee to it. "You have been cursed by a Goddess, Dean Winchester, so heed these words. Your curse is this:

_Viciously Destroy the hell-spawn  
And yet thy kill not humans, not men  
And if one glances thyne heart  
They find it such a thing as broken  
Thy walls are chinked and flawed_

Aphrodite laughs sinisterly,

_Under heavy blue gaze they crack  
And when thy tries to hide thyne's soul  
He lets not thy turn thyne back  
Thy scorn the promise of a love so great  
It could clean thyne blackened soul  
Thee works to try and keep distance  
Nary, thy'll never be whole  
And so I curse thee with this  
And may thy hear me well  
If by twenty days past thy cannot know thyne's soul mate  
May thee __**burn **__back in Hell_The echoes of Aphrodite's curse thrum in Dean's ringing ears and he pales dramatically, what color he has regained now lost. Aphrodite sinks before Dean, pulling down the sticky fabric of his shirt's neck, and lays a palm on his collarbone. The Goddess blatantly ignores the flinch Dean gives at her touch. He thinks he might actually be grateful for that, because the last thing Dean wants is this bitch poking fun at him, again, since he's got a tendency to bite out what flashes into his mind when he's pissed.

A searing pain explodes with no warning from beneath where Aphrodite has placed her burning hand, the mark of her curse etching itself into Dean's skin. It eclipses the throb of his gunshot wound, even, and Dean muffles a shout (that is not an agonized scream he will later insist.) and hears Sammy yelling his name.

Dean knows his green eyes are probably glazed over by now, but this doesn't particularly concern him. He's too busy struggling to escape Aphrodite and the fire she's searing him with. It makes the hole in his shoulder stretch, sting and that hurt flares up now, along with the gash in his skull because Dean can't stop from thrashing his head to the side.

Hazily, Dean sees that Aphrodite is darting sapphire eyes around the attic like a twitchy pet rabbit. This, by Dean's estimations, is kind of weird since she's a Goddess and what the hell can possibly scare her that will show up in the fucking attic of Claudia Winters who, apparently, is not Claudia Winters but Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, from Greek Mythology. Aphrodite removes her hand from Dean's collarbone, her curse mark still forming, but she no longer has time to spare. The angel is mere seconds from arriving and Aphrodite needs to leave.

A swish of her gown and the Goddess disappears. As she fades away, Sam is released from the invisible binds Aphrodite bound him with as soon as the youngest Winchester awakened.

"Fuck, Dean! Dean!" Sam gasps, voice hoarse from screaming while he was stuck, and runs to his older brother. It seems not to appear to matter that Aphrodite has disappeared; Dean still struggles wildly like she is holding him immobile even now. This, this sight of Dean breathless and bleeding and such is terrible, worse than what was done earlier that made him fall to his knees, especially when Sam's ears catch the muffled screams and whimpers caught in Dean's throat.

"Goddammit!" Sam swears because he is unsure of what he can do to ease this pain, if he can do anything at all.

Aphrodite floats above the house she has lived in for several months to draw in the Winchester boys, seeing right into where Dean fights in the attic, seeing as Castiel, angel Castiel, arrives and presses close to Dean, soothing with two fingers on the man's forehead so that he will sleep for a time through it all. "Such a pity. The poor child has suffered too much for me to have needed to add this upon him. I actually quite like him, for how much love that flows and beats that he carries so fiercely inside himself." she says. She does not turn her head to see the one beside her and she does not acknowledge its presence.

Dean thinks he falls briefly out of consciousness because he knows he's missing a few minutes from his mental catalogue except for a recent black nothing, but puts it down to the indisputable fact that the fire burns this badly. As he blinks his eyes open Dean observes that Sammy is hovering next to him in that concerned puppy dog way of his. Then, Dean turns his head form where it was lolling to the side to see Castiel leaning over him, a sharp expression gracing his features.

The angel's hand wavers just above the black lines swirling along Dean's skin before Castiel presses down firmly and the scream that is lodged inside Dean breaks free before he even realizes what is happening. HIs eyes fail to notice the freezing pack of watery ice that Castiel has until it's slammed onto Aphrodite's slow forming mark and it hurts.

It hurts so, so much that a tear escapes and rolls down his cheek, making Dean wonder absently in an attempt to distract himself if he's being sent back to Hell early.

Castiel mercilessly keeps the ice pack against Dean's skin even though Sam is now demanding that the angel remove it because it obviously isn't stopping the curse mark so what good can it be?

Dean thinks that this is why Aphrodite ran out, because once he tries to push Cas away the angel gives him a murderous look (murderous in that creepy, emotionless way of Castiel's) and it reminds Dean that Castiel is something not human and he is really fucking scary when he puts his mind to it/wants to be. "I apologize Dean but this is necessary." Castiel informs him in his gravel rough voice and Dean, regaining a little bit of his former snark, bites out an angry (not specifically at Cas though)

"Fuck...you, Cas. Get this damn...thing off...of me."

The angel does not let up however. Dean concludes he might just pass out again on the uncomfortable wooden flooring of 'Claudia Winters' house, which he would rather avoid because the last thing he needs is to wake up and be even more sore than he will be right now after all of this. Sam is once again saying something. Judging by the kid's expression it's probably something along the lines of 'we need to get Dean to a hospital' or 'we need to get Dean back to the motel'. He bets on the second one when the next thing Dean knows all three of them are back in the motel room Sam and Dean are renting.

The motel they are staying in this time is exactly like every other motel Dean and Sam have spent their entire lives living out of. Dirty and cramped, with at least one questionable stain somewhere in the room. The only thing that changes now is the wallpaper and sometimes the bedspreads. This particular room which Sammy and Dean have rented is sporting a hideous aquatic theme. Neither of them is quite sure that anyone will even be able to _sleep _with walls painted so bright.

Nonetheless, this is where they end up at. Dean can feel someone moving him around on top of the bed and thinks it must be Castiel because Sammy has bigger hands than Cas. Whoever it is, they settle Dean to lie against their chest and now Dean is almost positive that it's Castiel because of the whole personal space thing the angel hasn't really grasped just yet.

He's right, it turns out, when Sam comes back into the bedroom from where he slipped away into the tiny bathroom with a glass of water and sleeping pills that would knock out a horse. Dean takes them both gratefully, but the pills don't work for long and Dean is, unfortunately, awake for most of the rest of the time the mark is still burning into his skin.

It sucks.

By the time the fire recedes from his flesh, Dean feels exhausted and pissed off and most definitely is not in the mood to talk about the curse he's just had placed on him, which he has no problem informing Castiel and Sam of, although he isn't sure Cas even knew that he's been cursed until Dean mentions it himself.

"Sammy for God's sake would you let a man sleep?" Dean throws his pillow at his brother, bent on making the younger man shut up. It doesn't work the way he hopes in that Sammy catches the fish print pillow and it fails to hit him in the head. Damn.

Instead of shutting up, Sam keeps at it. Dean thinks his brother has been replaced by a broken record or a pod person sometime while he was in agonizing, nerve flaying pain......

......

It's a working theory.

Dean is also unhappy to note that Castiel is not much better than Sam. Even when he isn't insisting Dean repeat, verbatim, what Aphrodite's curse is, Cas just sits there staring at him shrewdly like he hopes that doing so will aid him forcing Dean to spill it all out in messy, incomprehensible way since that's the only way Dean thinks he's going to be able to talk about this. That, and he will have to be incredibly drunk. Incredibly, wonderfully, fantastically drunk.

"Dean, man, we need to know what the hell this curse said. Maybe Cas or I know something, some way to break it. I mean, I heard the last four lines of it dude, but what about what was before that?"

And there it is, Sammy's line for the last hour or so, in a regurgitated format.

"I am in agreement with Sam. I believe that it would be in your best interests if you informed us of what the curse is Dean."

Oooh, looky, and now Castiel is ganging up on him. Great!

Dean sits up from where he has been lying down and surges up from the bed, stalking angrily into the bathroom and locking the door behind him. It won't stop Castiel from being able to enter the tiled room if he wants to but Dean thinks that locking it has at least gotten his message across which happens to be: Leave me the fuck alone about the fucking curse goddammit!

Dean stares at himself in the mirror, bare chested and patched up now. Gauze is wrapped tightly around his shoulder where the gunshot wound is, and there are stitches, seven of them, in the back of his head. His collarbone has a new 'tattoo' that he wishes would just disappear.

And there, on his bicep, is Castiel's handprint.

When Dean had first climbed out of his own grave, the skin had been raised and inflamed red and puffy. By now, though, it has faded like a stamp on Dean's skin, like every other scar Dean has ever had but no longer carries since his resurrection. He has new battle wounds now scarring his taught, smooth and otherwise flawless skin.

Placing his own hand over the print, Dean sees that, as Cas's handprint once was, the area around Aphrodite's mark is red, inflamed and painful to the touch. Dean finds the tube of antiseptic that is stashed in the cabinet and smears some of it across the curse mark, flinching each time he rubs it into black lines and curves of the heart. Taking a few deep breaths, Dean moves his hands onto the edge of the grimy counter-top and frowns, a downturn of full pink lips, when he sees how tired and ready to collapse on the bathroom floor he looks and decides screw it.

They want to know so badly, he'll tell them. It looks like it is the only way he's going to be able to catch some shut eye and Sammy already knows the last four lines of it...

Deans storms out of the bathroom and stands in front of Castiel and Sammy, looking sullen and very much put out. He shoots them both an evil look that clearly indicates how much he wants to kill them right now and flops onto the bed, hissing when doing so jostles his injuries too much. Castiel steps forward in concern that maybe the stitches tore, but Dean flaps a hand at him.

"Dude, I'm fine." The blonde Hunter does his best to sound reassuring, toeing off his combat boots. Then, Dean burrows under the covers of his bed. In a quiet voice, sleepy and very hoarse from the screams that have escaped him, Dean repeats, "And so I curse thee with this/ And may thy hear me well/ If by twenty days past thy cannot know thyne's soul mate/ May thee burn back in Hell."

Sam frowns because he knows he heard those last four lines but he also knows that there must have been more to it than this, than what Dean has just told him. "Are you sure that's it Dean? I'm sure there was more- I just wasn't coherent enough then to remember it."

Castiel shows no reaction, though he dislikes the implication these curse's words offer- that Dean will die in the next twenty days unless he finds his soul mate and bonds with them- and that Sam is implying, that Dean is lying to them and not allowing them to hear the entirety of Aphrodite's curse.

Sitting up, Dean gives his little brother a flat, uninterested look. "Look Sam. I told you what you wanted to hear. Everything else before that was just the bitch freaking...posturing...or something. " Dean snipes and because Sam can recognize Dean in a bad mood- not that he blames Dean or anything- the youngest Winchester backs off, holding his hands up.

"Alright man, I just...I just wanted to be sure." Sam says. He turns on his laptop, opening the Internet Explorer page up to a search engine almost immediately. "You know what this means don't you? What she's done?" As he asks this, Sammy refuses to look up from the computer screen. Dean shoots a sideways glance at Castiel, notes that the angel is staring at him intently, and nods minutely.

He lies down again, shutting his brilliant green eyes so that neither angel nor brother can see the anxiety swimming in them right now. "Yeah, Sammy, I know. Bitch doomed me to die."

* * *

Dun dun dun! and part one is complete! bwahahah! Please review. It would totally make my day.


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